Green crime

What are the different approaches to defining green crime?

• Traditional criminology,

• transgressive criminology,

• global and manufactured risk.

What is the traditional criminology approach to defining green crime?

Sit and Emmons define Green crime as “an unauthorised act or omission that violates the law of a state or nation”, looking at the patterns and causes of law breaking. This wouldn’t consider global warming or acid rain as a crime because they don’t break any laws.

How does transgressive criminology define green crime?

It looks at the harm certain acts cause in order to determine criminality. White argues green crime is any action that harms the physical environment and animals within it even if no law has been broken.

How does the idea of global and manufactured risk define crime?

Beck suggests environmental crimes stem from human actions and it’s important to differentiate between natural environmental risks and those caused by human activity. For example, natural risks include earthquakes and hurricanes, but manufactured risks may include human actions that are linked to the severity of natural disasters.

What are the different types of green crime?

South suggests primary green crimes are crimes that result directly from the destruction and degradation of the earth’s resources, such as air pollution and deforestation. Secondary green crime is crime that grows out of the disregard for rules aimed at preventing or regulating environmental disasters, such as hazardous waste being dumped illegally at sea.

What are the problems with prosecuting green crime?

• There is no unified definition,

• governments prefer not to overregulate green crime,

• its transnational nature.

How does a lack of unified definition make it difficult to prosecute green crime?

Without a clear understanding of what constitutes green crime, it’s difficult to determine whether an activity is criminal or not.

How does the hesitance of governments to overregulate make it difficult to prosecute green crime?

Governments prefer not to overregulate private transactions by corporations as it may result in businesses relocating to other countries with less strict regulations. They choose to prioritise profit over environmental protection.

How does the transnational nature of green crime make it hard to prosecute?

There are often far-reaching environmental consequences, making it difficult to attribute responsibility. For example, the Chernobyl disaster affected areas thousands of miles away from the power plant.